Jewish Identity - Rich Boy

Anna’s post about Jewish Identities really made me think of how I view the Jewish community. I live in a town close to Anna’s that also has a high Jewish population. I went to all the Bat and Bar Mitzvahs and enjoyed every moment of it. It is very hard for me to imagine a community that didn’t have both Christian traditions and Jewish traditions as many of my friends are actively practicing Jews.

My last post was about insecurity connected to identity throughout Rich Boy. Now looking back on where I grew up, I think that my childhood gave me a wide variety of religious experiences. Like Anna, I am working on comprehending the idea of Antisemitism. When I was abroad this past fall, I was able to go to Amsterdam and visit the Anne Frank house. This was a very moving experience for me, especially because I read her diary in middle school. Quotes from the diary were all throughout the house and visitors are even allowed to go into her room. Here are some pictures from the house (not mine though as no photography was allowed). 

Again, I can not reiterate enough times how important I think that this class was on helping Colby students become more aware of themselves in relation to the world around them. Without knowing one's own biases interpretation can be swayed incorrectly.  I hope that everyone in the class remembers how important class is to understanding individuals in the real world as well as characters from the novels they read.

Insecurity in Rich Boy

One of the themes most applicable to college students in Rich Boy by Sharon Pomerantz is that of insecurity. Disillusioned with the neighborhood in which he grew up, Robert works hard to get to Tufts University. There he yearns to fit in with his wealthy peers, but has to work many odd jobs to pay for food. Reflecting on Robert’s place in the social hierarchy, the narrator states “These boys were the strivers at the public magnet high school, bused out of their communities because they were smart, arriving home each night, trying to blend in with their neighbors and families whom they secretly wanted only to abandon. He knew them because he was one of them. It was painful to see these things and realize how other people would see him.” Robert’s roommate shows the complete disparity among those who can afford to pay their full way at school and those that are working for their stay. Tracey parades his wealth when he decides that throwing away his tailored shirts and buying new ones is much easier task than washing them. This display of conspicuous consumption isolates Robert even more, but at the same time he grasps onto this idea of extreme wealth and makes it his ultimate goal. After graduation, Robert continues his social climb by attending law school and then working at a prestigious firm. He does all he can to become a member of the elite New York high society. Even though Robert can seem obsesses with this wealthy culture, ultimately he still holds onto the memories from his youth. He compares the suits he is now buying to those that his father wore. No matter how much he embodies wealth he has internalized poverty which separates him from the majority of this class. 

This concept of fitting in can be applied to real life scenarios here at Colby. Simple things like having one student ask another if they ski or where they summer can trigger insecurity for a student who has not been able to participate in these wealthy pastimes. I think that this class has been extremely eye opening to class difference, not only in literature but also in our daily interactions. If Colby could introduce some sort of education on class into the freshmen curriculum I think that the campus could become more understanding of different economic backgrounds.

Pressure to fit in - Do professors need to conform?

Like Melanie, I was shocked that there were so little negative reviews of Schooled. The protagonist is a selfish hypocrite who uses her role as a private school teacher in Manhattan turned tutor to do good. Now isn’t that a bit disconcerting? Why would she invest her time at a wealthy private school if she truly wanted to help the children? Even though someone in class did bring up a valid point that these students actually do need a lot of help as their parents are usually disengaged with their lives and they are just pushed through the system. If this is true, I would have hope for our protagonist Anna to delve into these topics instead of only commenting on the spoiled tendencies of the children and the grotesque behaviors of their parents. 

I think that Melanie raises very important issues – why does Anna feel that she has to conform to the ways of her students? Melanie sites the strong fashion sense of many of our Colby professors. Some rock styles that are not the norm by any means of the Colby students, yet do they feel pressure to fit in? I think this would be a very interesting topic to go into with the Colby faculty.

Here’s a possible outline of this project:

-       Interview Colby professors about their lives outside of Colby versus their lives inside the bubble

o    Do they feel pressure to conform to Colby standards of dress and etiquette

o    Do they change their demeanor when on campus? Especially when they are engaging with what appears to be affluent students?

-       Create some sort of range for the dress of professors

o    Maybe a photo essay with willing professors – outdoorsy, stylish, quirky

o    Brief bio underneath their picture maybe even put some of the labels they’re wearing in the description

-       Find out if there is a different pressure to conform in different departments – academic, deans, campus life….

I think that the professors on campus are sometimes left out of our discussion on class and race. As students, we are pressured to confront these issues. We are constantly asked to contemplate how we identify on social issues, but I am also interested how professors identify.

Class Mascot

The author of Schooled, Anisha Lakhani, lives on the Upper East Side with her beloved shitzu Harold Moscowitz. I was a bit appalled to see the class mascot page featuring her dog on the Schooled website and wanted too look further into the lives of these purebred animals. How else can they be exploited to demonstrate wealth? Here are some of the examples I found just in NYC:

Grooming:

http://www.ritzycanine.com/

Their mission statement- RITZY CANINE CARRIAGE HOUSE was conceived with the purpose of providing a loving, safe and luxurious haven for our beloved dogs and cats. Our staff will go to any lengths to make our guests' stay a true delight.

Here owners can even pay $60 for their pet to have an hour massage!

Pet Friendly Hotel:

http://www.themusehotel.com/mse_pet.html

Their mission statement: The rejuvenating pampering you receive at The Muse Hotel New York just wouldn't be the same without your furry friend, so bring your pet along.

Doggie Boutique:

http://www.doggiecoutureny.com/

Their mission statement: Welcome to Doggie Couture NY luxury pet boutique. We specialize in designer dog apparel for the pampered puppy. We offer dazzling designs from a stroll down Madison Avenue to the more practical romp in the park. If you have your own personal style, let us know what it is and we can custom create it just for you.

Carolyn Chute

“Ms. Chute, who grew up in Cape Elizabeth, Me., dropped out of school at 16 and supported herself and a young daughter by working as a charwoman, driving a school bus and plucking chickens.”

In my fiction writing class last year my professor always stressed the mantra “write what you know.” I think that Carolyn Chute took this saying to heart when she wrote The Beans of Egypt, Maine and that is why the characters come to life with interesting accents, gruff language, and immoral behavior.

This NY Times article “A Writer in a Living Novel” gives some context to Chute’s story (the article is written in November of 2008 right before her book The School on Heart’s Content Road is to be published). Chute’s role as founder and, as she says, “secretary of offense, or offensiveness” of the 2^nd Maine Militia is extremely fitting. Basically, this group meets behind Chute’s home to shoot at cans and discuss what is wrong in the world – it is a nonpartisan economic populist group. The group is very diverse, but each member shares the experience of the government trying to take something away form him.

Look at this interview I found with Chute. I love seeing her in her home. The description of the youtube video is very telling – “ She just doesn’t trust the system – nor want any part of it.”  Her novel definitely makes it clear that her characters have been failed by the system in a way that maybe she has too?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/books/04chut.html?pagewanted=2

Guilt - The Beans of Egypt, Maine

After reading The Beans of Egypt, Maine, I am embarrassed to say that I found the book very difficult to finish. I felt isolated from the characters and ultimately, had trouble feeling sympathy for them. Chute’s novel tells the tale of two poverty-stricken families in rural Maine who fight for survival, but the families’ lack of drive and motivation isolate them from the American dream and thus from the middle class reader.

Roberta Rosen’s article “I Hate this Book” resonated with me and other members of the class as well.  In her article, Rosen contemplates why The Beans of Egypt, Maine elicited such a strong, negative reaction from her undergraduate and graduate students. Her thesis reads, “Why was it possible for many of my students to accept cultural disparity when it seemed to be a matter of race, ethnicity or religion, but not when it was a matter of class? Was their previous open-mindedness just political correctness, or are class antagonisms more difficult to identify and accept in an American society which theoretically views itself as "classless?"2 The more I explore these questions, the more I am convinced that American middle-class assumptions and values should become a more prominent topic for critical analysis within multicultural literature.”

The fault in the middle class reading of a poverty portrait like the one Chute writes is that members of middle class America feel that they have earned their place there through hard work and dedication, so they cannot feel sympathy for characters who do not yearn for the same lifestyle. In this novel, the characters are cruel, dirty, aggressive, and lazy. Why do students feel no pity for poor white protagonists? I believe that Rosen highlights one of the most important issues in the education system today – awareness. It is not possible to read novels that deal with social issues of race and class if the reader is not aware of the preconceived notions he or she brings to the text.

It is also very interesting the Chute represents the middle class in her text as more clean and proper than the Beans. Instead of screaming and cursing the middle class represents the bourgeois life as Rosen states, “All of the middle-class characters who inhabit Egypt, Maine are certainly cleaner, as well as more ambitious, socially acceptable and progressive than their impoverished counterparts. However, there is something sinister about the arrival of the J. K. Smiths, a wealthy, enfranchised city family who take up residence across the road from the Beans. Most significantly, these newly established yuppies arrive on Thanksgiving with their "Mayflower" moving van full of furniture and the equipment of bourgeois life.”

Ali’s Critique of Kiswana

In Ali’s blog post titled “An Exception Not the Rule,” she grabbles with a problem that I found very disconcerting in Kiswana Browne’s chapter. Why would Kiswana think that choisng poverty would be a way to better the lives of African American women?

I actually think that Kiswana’s move into Brewster Place is more a rebellion to her family’s rich lifestyle. She does not feel like she can ever live up to their expectations. This is especially apparent in the passage when her mother comes to visit her apartment. At one point Kiswana snaps and yells, “No, Mama, You’re not poor. And what you have and I have are two totally different things. I don’t have a husband in real estate with a five-figure income and a home in Linden Hills – you do. What I have is a weekly unemployment check and an overdrawn checking account at United Federal. So this studio on Brewster is all I can afford” (83). Kiswana is definitely trying to distinguish herself as an individual away from her childhood self.

Ali brings attention to the controversial reason that Kiswana has pushed away her family. She writes, “Kiswana wants a better world for the African community, with rights and equality, but as her mother reminds her, how do you make the world better when you can't make it better for yourself? Priorities are skewed in Brewster Place, Kiswana needs to open her eyes and realize that Brewster Place isn't somewhere you hang out, it is a place you get stuck in and never escape.” I find it very hard to grapple with the fact that Kiswana places herself in this situation as a means of understanding her people’s problems, but does not create a plan to create change for them. With the resources she has been blessed with I would have hoped that she could have channeled her lofty ideas into more productive modes of change.

The Star of "The Two"

The chapter “The Two” opens with “At first they seemed like such nice girls. No one could remember exactly when they had moved into Brewster” (129). Lorraine and her loving spouse Theresa are not introduced as individuals, but rather as a pair of girls. Throughout the entire chapter the women of Brewster Place, especially Sophie, do not make the couple feel that they belong in this community because of their sexuality. Just a few pages into the text after witnessing Theresa catch Lorraine as she trips over a child’s toy the narrator reacts, “They had seen that- done that – with their men. The shared moment of invisible communion reserved for two and hidden from the rest of the world behind laughter or tears or a touch” (131)

Even though Lorraine displays all the qualities that these women would want in a neighbor (considerate, quiet, friendly) ultimately she is ostracized for her sexuality. Sophie spreads rumors about Lorraine and her spouse and “the two.” She even publically humiliates Lorraine at a community meeting. This is a very important scene because Lorraine flees out of embarrassment and I consoled by a man named Ben. His kind words make her confident and later when she leaves a party after a fight with Theresa she does not go directly home.

The horrible scene when Lorraine is gang raped leads an interesting reading. Maybe she is being punished for her outlying sexual behavior. Because she does not conform to societal norms, Lorraine is not safe. The Women of Brewster Place creates a very stifling environment for the characters of each chapter and Lorraine suffers a great deal. Ultimately, she stumbles away from the scene of the crime and murders Ben. This retaliation is a statement to her disappointment in men. She finally confided and felt safe around Ben and when her guard was let down she was brutally raped.

Real Life Turtle!

I went to Crescent Beach in Cape Elizabeth this past Sunday with my two brothers. As we were leaving the beach, I was shocked to see a turtle in the road! Obviously I couldn't help but think of the turtle from Grapes of Wrath. Since we weren't on a busy road, I told my little brother to get out and help the turtle off the road. He quickly jumped at the opportunity and helped encourage the turtle to the safety. I love with texts come to life : )

Depression Era Recipes

Wow! The group presentation we had in class on Monday was fabulous. Not to mention the fact that we had so many accepted students in class who I'm sure were blown away by the music, photos, and FOOD.  I really feel like I have a better understanding of what the Jode's and many other family experienced on their journey to California.

The main aspect of their presentation that resonated with me was how resourceful the families were. I looked into the recipes from the Depression and found a great deal of information. These women and men were creating cakes without flour and pies without fruit! The portion of their travel guide with food prizes definitely made the financial strain more understandable. When you compare the idea of buying sliced baked ham for 39 cents a pound to beans for 13 cents a can, is there really an option? Not to mention how difficult it was to secure fresh produce. Just look at this quote from the NY Times from an article "Urges Charity Gardens," "Soup kitchens and the missions state that they can always get meat scaps and day-old bread, frequently for nothing and always for very little, but the vegetables that make up the bulk of the soups and stews which they serve are few and far between, and those they can afford are poor and stale. Arrangements are being made to have baskets at the Grand Central and Pennsylvania Station to recieve contributions of fruit and vegetables brough in on trains."

In their presentation, one of the recipes covered was "mock apple pie" and we were even given the opportunity to taste it! Surprisingly, I found it actually resembled traditional apple pie which made me think - what else can we create without the normal ingredients?



I stumbled upon a 93 year old woman's blog that is completely devoted to recipes from the great depression. Here is one of her youtube videos of her cooking in the kitchen:

And here is one of her recipes:

Meatless Meat Loaf

Ingredients

1 cup rice
1 cup peanuts crushed
1 cup cottage cheese
1 egg
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon salt

Directions
Combine all the ingredients together. bake in a loaf pan for 30 minutes or until loaf is good and set.

History
With meat at a premium during the Great Depression, many people made do without chicken, beef or pork, except on rare occasions. One recurring theme that I have read from each story from someone who lived through the depression was that they remember being hungry all the time. The Meatless Meat Loaf may not sound appetizing, but it was filling.

Response to the NYTIMES - Gatsby!

Adieu, Sweet Life of ’20s Luxury

"Dan McCall, a professor emeritus at Cornell University, taught the book for 40 years. He marvels at the hold Gatsby still has on students. On the one hand, he said, with its hypnotic prose, its layers of longing for money, status, reinvention and love, it’s still channeling the American experience. “It’s not an antique to them, it’s never gone out of style the way some books I teach.” On the other hand, he said, Gatsby’s evocation of the American dream has an innocence and passion that are impossibly distant, like astral material from a lost galaxy. “Gatsby’s dream, the way he’s so devoted to it, that’s not something you find much in this economy, at this time. I think it’s breathtaking for kids in college. It’s an America they haven’t heard about from their parents.” " - PETER APPLEBOME


"Maybe someone will write today’s “Gatsby.” Or maybe it would just be an epic tweet: “Yo, Gatz. Blue lawn, green light, so close, but too far. Ahh, Daisy. We beat on, boats vs. the current, borne back, lol, into the past.”

 

I think that Peter Applebome's comment on how students connect to The Great Gatsby is really true. First off, it is a short novel that many of us had read before coming to Harrington's class. Though one of my peers, Elise, had never read it before though and I remember distinctly her reading it in one of our other classes. It drew her in so intensely that she could not put it down! Personally, I had read the novel in high school and was astounded at the beautiful sentence structure all over again. Even something as simple as in Chapter 7 as a boat moving along the water, Fitzgerald is able to capture intensity, movement, and beauty in with his words. "On the green Sound, stagnant in the heat, one small sail crawled slowly toward the fresher sea...Slowly the white wings of the boat moved against the blue cool limit of the sky." Fitzgerald pulls us in with his words.  They meld together so smoothly that before I realized I was already half way through the book. More over, Fitzgerald has astounding characters that represent ridiculous aspects of society. We see immense wealth, moral decay, death, adultery. These are the topics that get audiences engaged and that is why this book functions so well in the classroom. Is Fizgerald representing the American Dream? Is Gatsby corrupt?

Applebome goes further in the NY Times article to comment on who Jay would be in the 21^st century. Would he be a Bernie Madoff or a Mark Zuckerburg? I think that this article captures a great deal in the side comments. The commentary was brought up though because a huge mansion in Great Neck is being sold and it is said to be the inspiration for The Great Gatsby. Does it matter if these mansions disappear? Apparently over 500 of these mansions have already been knocked down.

Fitzgerald's view of the rich - "Her voice is full of money"

Chapter Seven is an excellent source to dive into the way wealth is depicted The Great Gatsby - specifically how Daisy is a representation of money. The scene opens with Jordan and Daisy lounging due to the immense heat of the summer. "The room, shadowed well with awnings, was dark and cool. Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans" ( 115). This screams of Veblem's idea of the idle wealth. The women can do nothing but sit around, Daisy ignores her child, she ignores her husband, all due to a heat wave. THe chapter continues to exaggarate Daisy as a figure of wealth. She is obnoxious and frivilous with her actions. At one point, in front of Jordan, she pulls Gatsby to her level and kisses him. Does she have no sense of deceny? Her husband is in the next room! This is an expression of the true moral decay that happens within the upper levels of society. She has no emotional connection to Tom, but ultimately she chooses to be with him for the social stability.

My favorite part of this chapter though is when Fitzgerald describes Daisy has having a "voice full of money". The comment is so fitting for Daisy's character because she embodies wealth entirely. She is a beautiful, young Southern debutant that plays the role of wife - a shallow, selfish one for that matter. Nick reflects on her character, "That was it. I'd never understood it before. It was full of money - that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it... High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl..." Nick is such a marvelous character because he contrasts intensely with the society he surrounds himself with. He is able to break down the fragile shell that the Buchanan create to perform their outlandish lifestyle. It is true that he gets carried away at points, but for the majority of the novel he serves as a level headed narrator.

Overall, Chapter Seven is a really interesting representation of wealth that captures the idle rich well. They deliberate over going into town for the majority of the chapter, which only culminates with Myrtle's murder.

A land turtle crawled....

In his novel The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck devotes all of Chapter Three to describe a "land turtle" crossing a concrete highway. The immense amount of details makes clear the fact that the turtle is going to be a reoccurring symbol throughout the novel. He is introduced in this scene, "And over the grass at the roadside a land turtle crawled, turning aside for nothing, dragging his high-domed shell over the grass. His hard legs and yellow-nailed feet threshed slowly through the grass, not really walking, but boosting and dragging his shell along..." While the chapter is extremely short, the emphasis is very important to note early on in the novel.

The two interactions the turtle has with society in this chapter speak volumes. The turtle can be read as a representation of the vagrant farmers in California and his tenacity proves the strenght of these men and women. Here is first interaction the turtle has: the "forty-year-old woman" did all she could to avoid the turtle, even putting her own life in danger as she skidded off the road to avoid taking the life of this animal. Contrastingly, when a truck driver saw the helpless turtle, he intentionally swerved to hit the creature. These two different mindsets are very interesting, especially when they are placed directly next to each other. Steinbeck's turtle is a fighter, and he makes it through the awful circumstances in the same way that the farmers do. Without a home, without food, the turtle perseveres and I predict the California farmers, like Joad, will do the same.

Later in Chapter Four, Joad reaches out to the turtle, taking him from the highway. I look forward to seeing how Steinbeck develops the symbol of the turtle as the novel continues.

Lily Bart - A Sexualized Object

 I thought it was really interesting to see the "living picture" scene depicted on film! I didn't picture Lily as she was cast in this film, which always ends up being my main issues with cinematic adaptations of books I have read.

'Mrs. Lloyd' by Reynolds - Lily's character in the scene from Chapter 12 in Book One 

At the end of Book One in The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton Lily Bart participates in the tableaux vivants at the Bry’s paty. She impersonates Reynolds’ Mrs Lloyd, as pictured above. This choice is perfect for Lily because she is able to embody the character without losing herself, or so it is represented. In fact, Lily is not herself on stage; she is a sexualized object.

The explanatory notes define tableaux vivants as the posing of ‘living pictures’ based on famous works of art or historical scenes; a favorite form of entertainment employed at all social levels. In the upper class New York society, these displays were of femininity and wealth. Lily is objectified as a sexual being in this scene. She is oogled by the crowd for her beauty. Wharton writes, “Her pale draperies, and the background of foliage against which she stood, served only to relieve the long dryad-like curves that swept upward from her poised foot to her lifted arm” (132).  She is literally working as a piece of art that men can purchase. She is to be collected not loved.

Ironically, this is the same scene when Selden feels that he glimpse into the real Lily Bart, but the moment is short lived. Lily surrounds herself with men who value her for only her outward appearance. Contrastingly, she is unable to value a man who does not have wealth, but at the same time holds some hope to finding a man that will love her, as well.

The tableaux vivante scene captures Lily’s quest in life very well. She tries to perform the best version of herself, the most beautiful, the most refined, but ultimately she is not valued in society apart from appearance. “No other tableau had been received with that precise note of approval: it had obviously been called forth by herself, and not by the picture she impersonated” (134). She is unable to harness either of her opposing desires, to love and to marry well, and therefore is left only as a beautiful face admired by male society. Sadly, beauty is a transient feature and once it is gone Lily is left with no hope.

Lily Bart - Serena Van der Woodsen

This little clip made me think of Lily in Grand Central

PAINT

There is no doubt that paint is a theme that splatters itself throughout the entire text of The Rise of Silas Lapham. Paint manifests itself in both the Lapham family and the Corey family dynamic, symbolically serving as a mask. In fact, when the concept paint is dissected it is used purely to alter something on the surface level. A canvas can change into a portrait, but ultimately the physical properties have not been altered. This notion of only touching the surface is very relevant in William Dean Howells' novel.

here are some examples:

"It'll prevent decay, and it;ll stop it, after it's begun, in tin or iron... You can cover a brick wall with it, or a railroad car, or the deck of a steam-boat, and you can't do a better thing for either" (12). 

"Lapham had not  yet reached the picture-buying stage of the rich man's development, but they decorated their house with the costliest and most abominble frescoes..." (25). 

"It was absurd for him to paint portraits for pay, and ridiculous to paint them for nothing; so he did not paint them at all" (70).

“You architects," he says to Mr. Seymour, Silas' architect, "and the musicians are the true and only artistic creators. All the rest of us, sculptors, painters, novelists, and tailors, deal with forms that we have before us; we try to imitate."'

"He asked Mr. Corey who was about the best American painter going now. 'I don't set up to be a judge of pictures, but i know what i like,' he said" (205). 

Going back to his roots...

William Dean Howells uses his protagonist Silas Lapham to personify how greed develops simultaneously when an individual is successful in a capitalistic society. The importance though of The Rise of Silas Lapham is that ultimately, his morality does not fail him because he was raised in a good family who valued hard work.

Within the first few pages of the novel, Howell’s stresses the importance of Silas’s childhood on the farm in Vermont. Silas describes his parents in the interview with Bartley, “I don’t know how she got through it. She didn’t seem to think it was anything; and I guess it was no more than my father expected of her. He worked like a horse in doors and out – up at daylight, feeding the stock, and groaning round all day with his rheumatism, but not stopping” (6).  The novel is set up to have a cycle of morality. The Laphams are tempted into a life of riches unlike they’ve known before when their paint business takes off. Silas cuts ties with his partner, against the wishes of his moral wife, because he fears that he will drain money from the company. The importance of Persis as a moral compass is so important because she never forgets how to make the right decision.

Greed is also depicted in the extravagant, new house that the Laphams build in Back Bay, or New Land.  Even though Silas doesn’t even admits that a proper, or societal acceptable, home can only be built with a huge financial investment because he does not have the taste to design the home on his own. Every idea he had of what displayed wealth was rejected by the architect, which further proves how out of place the Laphams were in the upper class Bostonian society. These repetitive hints that the Laphams belonged back at the farm with good, hardworking, family centered people illuminates the moral downfall of Silas. His greed and desire to fit an alternate world blinded him to the destruction he was creating for those around him.

Luckily for Silas, and the reader who has invested in his character, Howells creates a circle story. After the destruction of the paint business, the burning of their new house, the tragedy of their younger daughter’s broken heart, Howells brings the family back to their “roots” (A lovely image that Prof. Harrington pointed out in class). Silas saves his family from financial ruin and he converses with Minister Sewell to right all his misdoings. The ending is a bit unrealistic, but for me, just what I wanted to see happen! 

"The Other Half"

In How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis depicts the life of poor immigrants during the 19th century in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I found the photo journal aspect of his book to be the most compelling. He captured the horrible living situations and illuminated a population that was hidden from the rest of the world. While the style of writing was very information heavy and more journalistic than the Crane and Twain, the numbers did make the lives of the immigrants more real to me:

• "It could not have been very long, for already in 1862, ten years after it was finished, a sanitary official counted 146 cases of sickness in the court, including "all kinds of infectious disease," from small-pox down, and reported that of 138 children born in it in less than three years 61 had died, mostly before they were one year old." 

• "Ask Superintendent Murray, who, as captain of the Oak Street squad, in seven months secured convictions for theft, robbery, and murder aggregating no less than five hundred and thirty years of penal servitude, and he will tell you his opinion that the Fourth Ward, even in the last twenty years, has turned out more criminals than all the rest of the city together."

• "All nine lived in two rooms, one about ten feet square that served as parlor, bedroom, and eating-room, the other a small hall-room made into a kitchen."

I think that Riis wrote an extremely well written introduction. The first paragraph alone captures his audience and explicitly says what he will focus on in his book:  "Long ago it was said that "one half of the world does not know how the other half lives." ...There came a time when the discomfort and crowding below were so great, and the consequent upheavals so violent, that it was no longer an easy thing to do, and then the upper half fell to inquiring what was the matter." I think that sometimes in today's world, the media constantly flashes pictures of the "slums" or 3rd world countries without calling attention to the fact that it is real. To the comfortable, middle-class American all the issues seem so far away. We need another Riis to go into inner cities and capture what is going on now and put it on display the same way that Riis did. 

Here are a couple of his photos that really struck me: 

Hypergamy?

"His Royal Highness Sigismund-Siegfriend-Lauenfeld-Dinkelspiel-Schwartzenberg Blutwurst, Hereditary Grant Duke of Katzenyammer"(17).

Which wedding has the happier couple? 

In "The $30,000 Bequest," Twain introduces the concept of "marrying up" with the Foster family. Both Aleck and Sally become obsessed with their two daughters marrying the best quality, both financially and socially, in order to propel the family into the highest society possible. As they grow fictitiously wealthy, their notion of who is the best fit constantly changes. 

At first, Gwendolen and Clytemnestra, the two daughters, are expected to marry their family friends Adelbert and Hosannah, two journeymen right out of apprenticeship. I found it so interesting how important it was to the parents for their daughters not to settle for someone who wasn't financially thier equivalent or better. With today's divorce rates, I feel like parents are instead hoping for their children to find real love - someone who will make them happy. At the same time, when I was looking into the idea of "marrying up", I was shocked to see how much information was out their on the subject. My google search alone came up with over a million results. One informed me that hypergamy was the true term for "act of seeking a spouse of higher socioeconomic status." Another was titled "How to Marry Up" - this eHow.com article was very detailed and even had a Tips & Warnings section that said "When in doubt, keep your mouth shut." 

Even after doing a little research on the pathetic notion of "hypergamy" it is hard to look at these two wedding photos and not yearn to be Princess Diana. Her wealth, beauty (and ROYALTY) are so appealing, yet why do I want her life when I know the tragic end? Twain depicts moral decay in connection to wealth blatantly in this short story. His characters become obsessive, seclusive, and exclusive. Aleck is never described again as "Happy in her husband, happy in her children, and the husband and the children were happy in her" (1). I think that Twain's decision to let them restart at the end of the story is very interesting, especially because we do not know if they fall back into the same greedy ways. 

There is no doubt that financial security brings happiness, but when is the point when it leads to destruction? How much money does a family need to earn before it is ruined?